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Straight A’s student: how Mr Beane learnt to beat the best in baseball

September 19 2011, 1:01am, The Times

Brad Pitt stars in Moneyball, due for release in the US on FridayMelinda Sue Gordon/Columbia Pictures/Handout

A film due for release in the US on Friday will ask one of the nation’s most divisive questions: can a statistics-crunching machine really understand baseball better than a man?

Moneyball, which stars Brad Pitt, is based on a book that was branded heretical by the baseball establishment when published in 2003. It told the story of Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A’s, who created a winning side despite having one of the smallest budgets in the game.

For decades it had been accepted that spotting potential baseball stars was an art best performed by veteran scouts whose instincts had been elevated to near mystical levels after years on the road watching endless college and high school games. Instead, Mr Beane relied on…